


doesn't weigh me down at all

by kellifer_fic



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Found Family, M/M, Original Male Character - Freeform, Pack Feels, Protective Older Brothers, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, stiles has an older brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-10 11:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2023305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellifer_fic/pseuds/kellifer_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your brother is cool. What happened to you?"</p><p>"Har, har, hilarious," Stiles says as Scott grabs him in a head lock and rubs the top of his head. "He's going to hold this one over me for ages," Stiles sighs after a few minutes of the sounds of just their feet shuffling through the undergrowth.</p><p>"Could've been worse," Scott says.</p><p>"I guess so."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles thinks it's an _awesome_ idea to go and try to find half a body in the woods, right up until he and Scott are crouched on a slope and he feels someone grab the back of his jacket and pull him roughly to his feet. Stiles twists around when he's released and all he can see is blinding light as a flashlight gets pointed directly at his face, the sound of Scott wheezing beside him the only thing that stops him getting completely disorientated. 

"Stiles, dammit," a completely put-upon voice groans and Stiles goes boneless with relief.

"Lucas," Stiles breathes out, knocking the flashlight aside so he can see his older brother standing in his deputy's uniform, looking thunderous. He doesn't care how mad Lucas is, it beats his _dad_ being the one to stumble on them.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lucas demands, pointing the flashlight between him and Scott. 

"There was nothing on Netflix?"

"Seriously, dad's going to skin you alive when he finds out you've been using his scanner again."

"That's why he's _not_ going to find out," Stiles says, voice wheedling and hands held clasped in front of him in supplication. Scott's looking between them, like his fate as a good kid hangs in the balance and it does. Melissa is about as scary as the Sheriff when she's peeved and being found in the woods after midnight on a school night will get her righteously pissed.

"I'm not covering for you, not this time. There are cops all over, Stiles. In case you hadn't noticed, you're basically stumbling around a crime scene."

"No duh," Stiles says, flails his hands when Lucas tucks his chin sideways and thumbs his radio. "No, nononono! I'm sorry, done being a smartass, I swear! I'll owe you big time if you don't rat us out."

"This isn't sneaking into an adult movie, Stiles, this is serious," Lucas says, but he's wavering, Stiles can sense it. 

"I'll go straight home," Stiles promises, amends after Scott jabs him in the side, "I'll go straight home _after_ dropping Scott off."

"Kiddo, seriously," Lucas says, but Stiles knows he's won if Lucas starts using _kiddo_. It means he's exasperated, but defeated. It's always been his tell and Stiles is _never_ going to tell him. Lucas lifts his watch up to his face, clicks the little button on the side that lights it up and then sighs. "I'm off shift in an hour. I'm going to come over and check you're there, you got me?"

"Loud and clear," Stiles says, throwing in a little salute because he can't help it and Lucas very gently smacks him in the forehead with his flashlight. "Ow, hey!"

"I'm surprised you're out here. Don't you guys have Lacrosse practice tomorrow?"

"It doesn't take much energy to sit on the bench," Stiles says. "In fact, I could sleep on the bench."

"Thanks, Lucas, for real," Scott gushes and he turns his attention on Scott, shaking his head.

"I'd expect this from Stiles but not you, Scott. I'm disappointed." 

Scott puts a hand to his chest like he's actually physically wounded and Stiles rolls his eyes, gripping Scott by the Kangaroo pouch on his hoodie and tugging him away. 

"See you in an hour Deputy Dorkface!" Stiles calls over his shoulder and stumbles a little when a clump of dirt hits him square in the back of the head. 

"Did you hear that? He was disappointed in me. I didn't even want to come," Scott grumbles, chewing on the string of his hoodie and shooting Stiles a baleful glance. Scott's always been a little in awe of Lucas, seven years older than them and seemingly one of those people that just has everything figured out. Stiles has to admit, he's pretty much the same. There was enough of an age gap between them that they'd never been particularly antagonistic siblings. Lucas had always been more of a protector. It helped that Stiles had been a nauseatingly adorable kid, even if he does say so himself.

"All I heard was that I'm not getting grounded," Stiles says, aiming for the jeep parked on a diagonal at the end of the dirt track they're pushing through. It's partially overgrown, not many people use it or even know about it which is why they'd been able to approach the circus of a crime scene without being seen.

"Your brother is cool. What happened to you?"

"Har har, hilarious," Stiles says as Scott grabs him in a head lock and rubs the top of his head. "He's going to hold this one over me for ages," Stiles sighs after a few minutes of their feet shuffling through the undergrowth.

"Could've been worse," Scott says.

"I guess so."

*

An hour later, Stiles is in bed as promised when there's the sound of smashing glass from downstairs. He pitches himself half off the bed, digs around underneath pushing aside board games and forgotten socks until his hand happens on a familiar plastic shape and he brings out the _emergencies only or I swear to god_ pepper spray Stiles' dad had handed him six months ago when there'd been a rash of home invasions in their neighborhood and the Sheriff was doing a lot of overnight shifts.

Stiles is up and creeping down the stairs, avoiding the fourth step on the right side that always squeaks but he lowers the pepper spray a little when he sees that the kitchen light is on. He rounds the corner and it's just his brother, hunched over the sink with broken glass spread all over the floor behind him.

"Aw, hell, Lucas, don't move," Stiles instructs when he sees Lucas's feet are bare. He shuffles out to the front entryway so he can step into his own sneakers before dealing with the glass. He comes back and Lucas has stayed put so Stiles crosses carefully to the kitchen cabinet where the dust pan and brush are located, avoiding the bigger pieces of broken glass. 

"Sorry... I... " Lucas says, his voice sounding a little off. Stiles is crouched down, carefully brushing glass into the pan when he looks up and sees Lucas is in his under shirt and that the bottom half of it is red.

"What the hell?" Stiles blurts, dropping the brush and pan in his hands and darting up. He sees out of the corner of his eye Lucas' discarded uniform shirt hooked over one of the kitchen chairs and it's also soaked red and hanging funny, like it's torn. 

"It's not... I'm not sure what..." Lucas looks glassy-eyed and Stiles returns to dealing with the broken glass, doing as quick and thorough a job as he can before he sets aside everything and then herds Lucas back towards the kitchen table and into a chair. 

"What happened? Are you _shot_?"

"I'm not... no, Stiles, I'm not shot," Lucas says, sounding a touch more lucid. "Don't be a dumbass."

"What is it?" Stiles says, reaching for Lucas' shirt and then smacking at the hands that smack at his when Lucas tries to twist away. "Let me look, you baby."

"I think it was just a really big dog," Lucas says. He'd been slumped when Stiles first put him in the chair, but he's pulled himself a little more upright. His face was also pale as milk when Stiles first looked at it but even as Stiles watches, color is seeping back into his cheeks. 

"This is a dog bite?" Stiles asks, dubious because there seems to be a lot of blood considering Lucas' clothes. Stiles finally manages to get the undershirt out of the way and then grunts in consternation and not a little worry at the amount of blood coating Lucas' side. He can't even see a wound. Stiles gets up and crosses to the sink, pushes a dishtowel under the spray for a few seconds and then comes back over, hooking another chair and dragging it to in front of Lucas.

He carefully wipes away the worst of the blood and at first what he's looking at just doesn't compute. He's expecting to see a dog bite, sure, but what he's looking at is just too large. Stiles raises his free hand and holds it hovering over the bite for a second, spreads his fingers as wide as they'll go and even then he's barely spanning the breadth of the marks in a half moon shape, small punctures in the middle and two larger, more ragged holes on the edges. 

It doesn't seem to be bleeding anymore which Stiles supposes is something at least.

"C'mon, we're going to the emergency room," Stiles says, making to stand but Lucas tugs him back down.

"I don't think it's that bad."

"You don't think... Lucas! This looks like a goddamned bear bit you."

"There's no bears in this area."

"It wasn't a dog, unless Cujo is real."

"Cujo was a St. Bernard. He could be real."

"Okay, then the Jaws equivalent of a dog."

"Stiles, it doesn't even hurt, okay?" Lucas says, making to get up himself and this time it's Stiles' turn to tug him back down. 

"I don't know what that means but it could be bad. Maybe you have nerve damage, maybe that's why you can't feel it."

"Stop freaking out. It's fine, honestly."

"You bled through two shirts," Stiles says, tugging at the offending undershirt as exhibit A and then flailing a hand at the uniform shirt. Lucas isn't listening though, he's got his head tucked down and he's frowning.

"I think I found the other half of the body," he says in a quiet voice.

"You what?" Stiles exclaims, momentarily distracted from his worry. He's always had a, he thinks, healthy obsession with the macabre and to think Beacon Hills is host to something that gruesome is probably the most exciting thing to ever happen. 

"I saw her and then there was this noise and something hit me from the side. Before I could get up it was on me. I felt it bite down and then I was rolling down an embankment. I got up and I think I... " Lucas looks up, brows drawn in and down in confusion. "I think I walked here."

"You walked here?"

"I don't really remember... I just wanted to get... here." Lucas is looking down at himself, prodding gingerly at the bite mark. 

"Let me patch you up, at least. Stay here the rest of the night and if it looks worse in the morning or you bleed any more then we're going to the hospital, okay?" Stiles says, trying to inject the sternness into his voice both his father and Lucas are so good at when they're controlling errant suspects and teenagers. Lucas just raises an eyebrow at him like he's a cute animal doing a trick, but he also nods so Stiles will take it as a win.

Stiles thumps back upstairs, finds the first aid kit in the medicine cabinet and hears Lucas pass by the bathroom while he's rummaging around for the gauze and antiseptic cream that have fallen out of the kit at some point. He finds Lucas in his bedroom, already on his bed and prone.

"No way, nuh-uh. You get the couch."

"I'm injured," Lucas says in his most plaintive voice. 

"I don't care if you had your leg lopped off, you don't get my bed."

Lucas is bigger than him, solid in a way he's hoping will happen to him in time and when he wants to become an immovable object, he is one. It helps his cause that Stiles isn't willing to tug on him too much considering he _is_ hurt so after Stiles does his best to clean and dress Lucas’ bite with Lucas not really helping at all, he huffs down to his dad's room and crashes face first on his dad's overly hard mattress. He knows his dad's pulling a double so he won't be back that night but it still feels too weird so eventually he goes back into his room, tugs the comforter off Lucas who swears at him but doesn't bother getting up and goes down to the living room.

"Goodnight, Stiles!" Lucas' voice floats down from upstairs.

"Eat me!" Stiles calls back.

*

The smell of eggs, the sound of someone moving about the kitchen and his phone vibrating on his chest all rouse Stiles the next morning.

"Your phone has been going off every two seconds, would you just answer it?" Lucas leans out of the kitchen to say.

Stiles thumbs his phone screen, sees he's got fifteen missed calls and three messages, all from Scott, and startles when the phone starts ringing again in his hand. "What, Scott, _what_?" Stiles demands.

"Dude, where are you?" Scott demands, sounding a touch breathless which is always a bad thing with Scott.

"I'm at home. It's like, six in the morning. Where are you?"

"I think I dropped my inhaler last night," Scott says. "If I lose another one Mom's going to kill me."

"Last night, as in, _in the forest_?" Stiles groans.

"You gotta come and look for it with me."

"Scott, sometimes we have to just let things go."

"Stiles!"

"Alright, fine, we'll go after school. We're never going to find it."

"I know," Scott says glumly as Stiles stands and stretches, making his way up to his room and kicking his backpack open that's slumped by the door. He paws about in it until he comes up with the spare inhaler he keeps for emergencies.

"I've got your spare," Stiles says, shaking it.

"You're a lifesaver, but we should still go see if we can find mine."

"Yeah, okay."

"You want some eggs?" Lucas calls up to him.

"With bacon. It's in the crisper hidden under the Kale!" Stiles calls back, says goodbye to Scott and then pulls off his pajamas and steps into jeans and tugs on a t-shirt from the clean pile before heading back downstairs.

"Dad knows you hide the bacon," Lucas comments as he's dishing up.

"He knows I hide it but he doesn't know where," Stiles says. "You'd think there was a force-field around the crisper the way he doesn't seem able to find it."

"He's fine, y'know. His last medical was good."

"You think maybe his last medical was good _because_ I hide the bacon?" Stiles says, shoveling eggs into his face, never a delicate eater. Lucas makes a touché noise as he dishes out his own plate of eggs. "Hey, how's your bite? Do I get to ditch school today to hold your hand and sit by your bedside?"

"Naw, it's fine," Lucas says, standing for a second so he can lift his shirt. The bandage Stiles put on hasn't been bled through and the skin around looks normal and tan. Lucas pokes at it and then shuffles over to Stiles with a resigned snort when Stiles makes grabby hands at him. Stiles starts to peel at the tape holding the gauze down but Lucas hisses and jerks away. "I'll take it off in the shower, just leave it."

Stiles grunts but nods. The skin around the bandage feels cool to the touch, not hot and Stiles is at least partially mollified. "Get Dana at the station to look at it at least?" Stiles presses. Dana was a medic in the army before she joined the department in Beacon Hills and she's also a tough mother of six and will march Lucas into hospital by his ear if she thinks he needs it.

"Fine," Lucas huffs. "You want a ride to school?"

"I have the jeep," Stiles says. 

"That think is just going to fall apart if you sneeze sitting in it, I swear," Lucas says, cuffing Stiles over the back of the head before he returns to his own breakfast.

"You leave my jeep alone."

"You're nearly eighteen. Maybe for your birthday we could-"

"It's fine," Stiles says into his breakfast. "Really, the jeep's fine."

"Stiles, I know it was mom's but she'd want you to be safe."

"I'm going to be late," Stiles says, jamming a piece of toast in the side of his mouth and getting up from the table. He can feel Lucas' eyes on him as he retreats but he doesn't dare look back.

*

"It's gotta be here."

"There's an argument about a needle and a haystack I'm being a good friend by not bringing up here," Stiles says. He'd been searching just like Scott for the first hour but he'd given up and now he’s slumped against a tree, watching Scott dig fruitlessly through piles of leaves. 

"I need to find it."

"You've got the spare."

"It's nearly empty. The other one was brand new and if I ask for another one Mom’s going to worry that I'm having to use it a lot and drag me in for tests. She threatened to ban me from Lacrosse the last time I had an attack. I want her to think I'm getting better, not worse."

"Why would she ban you from Lacrosse? It's not exactly strenuous when you're us."

"I'm making first string this year. I have a plan."

"Does that plan involve falling into a vat of radioactive waste thereby giving you super powers?"

"Your belief in me makes me mist up, really Stiles."

"Dude, I'm sorry, I _do_ believe in you, but I also believe that your lungs turn into raisins when you exert yourself and I really prefer my best friend being alive."

"What are you doing here?" a voice barks and both Stiles and Scott jerk upright, Scott immediately backpedaling until he's by Stiles' side. There's a man standing at the edge of a thick clump of trees, doing an impression of a hot, murderous statue. 

"We were just-" Scott starts to explain and the man makes a dismissive gesture with his arm.

"This is private property."

"Did you have to work long on that grumpy old man impression because it's coming along," Stiles says and the guy frowns at them, like he really wasn't expecting anything but screaming and running away. 

"I'm just trying to find-" Scott starts again but the guy is advancing on him and suddenly Stiles recognizes him. It's been a few years, but the face is the same although more stark and covered in sexy stubble. The pictures Stiles had seen had been grainy and indistinct, but he'd seen them often enough that he knew Derek Hale when he was looking at him. His dad had kept those files at home for months, determined to prove what had happened to the Hales wasn't accidental because he needed to do something, to find a way to blame someone for a tragedy that practically wiped out an entire family.

"Why do you smell like that?" Derek demands, and Stiles is surprised to find that the question is aimed at him. He totally showered this morning.

"Dude, what-?" he starts to say but then Derek is basically on him, one arm wrapped around behind his back so he can't retreat and his nose pressed into Stiles' throat. "What?" he squeaks again.

"You-" Derek says, right into the skin of Stiles' throat and Stiles' whole body jerks, gooseflesh breaking out. 

"Um," Scott says uselessly from beside them and Derek reaches out his free hand and shoves something at Scott. Stiles is able to turn his head enough to see Scott uncurl his hand and he's holding his inhaler. "Oh dude, _thank you_ ," Scott gushes happily, like it's now perfectly okay for his best friend to be mauled by a stranger.

Derek is retreating as fast as he advanced, something complex in his expression. "Get off my land," he throws over his shoulder and then he's gone.

Scott holds up the inhaler like a trophy, grinning and Stiles just flails at himself and then the direction Derek disappeared. "Dude."

"Oh, yeah, super weird but also awesome," Scott enthuses, holding the inhaler to his chest and smiling to himself.

"Did you know who that was?" Stiles asks.

"Should I?"

"That was Derek Hale. The Hale fire? Ring any bells? About ten years ago nearly his whole family died. I think it was just him and his sister left."

"Wow, that's awful."

"Yeah, apparently now he's haunting the woods, sniffing teenagers. Not at all super creepy."

*

There's a really sweet black Camaro sitting on the curb outside his house when Stiles gets home. There's someone sitting in the front seat, kind of hunched down like they're trying to be unobtrusive but Stiles is his father's son and it sets off alarm bells immediately. He approaches and just as he gets close, he recognizes who is in the driver's seat, even though the guy is wearing large wraparound sunglasses and hunching further down as Stiles walks over.

"Y'know, this is see through," Stiles says, waving a hand around the vicinity of the windshield. 

"That's your house?" Derek asks, looking like he's annoyed about the fact and Stiles leans over with an arm on the car roof, immediately removes it when Derek lowers his glasses to give Stiles a pointed look.

"It's also the _Sheriff's_ house, in case you were wondering. Probably not the best place to be a Stalky Mcstalkerson."

"I'm not a... what?" Derek says, sitting up straighter in his car seat.

"You were just like, sniffing me in the woods and now you're sitting in front of my house? Do I need to go and get the pepper spray or are you going to tell me what your deal is?"

"Why aren't you intimidated by me?"

"If you have to ask that question, then you're doing something wrong," Stiles says. He's always felt like he's a good judge of character, he picked Scott for a best friend his first day of school and that had turned out to be an awesome decision, so he's always trusted his gut, and something about Derek says that he's not a danger, at least directly.

"Oh my god, seriously," Derek says and there's a note of actual complaint in his voice.

"Why are you following me?"

"I'm not following _you_."

"Who're you following, then?"

"It's not really a who," Derek says, blinking at being caught out.

"Cryptic. I can dig it."

"Would you just go away?"

"Nah, this is way too fun and all I had to look forward to this evening was pizza and a Firefly marathon," Stiles says, jogging around the front of Derek's car, pulling open the passenger seat and sliding in. Derek watches him do it with this mostly incredulous look on his face and it settles into abject disbelief as Stiles starts poking around the interior of the car. 

"I'll give you to the count of three to get out of this car."

"There's a lot of takeout bags in the back seat."

"One."

"You need one of those rear vision mirror scent things because it's pretty ripe in here."

"Two."

"Is that an Enya CD?"

"Three."

"If you're not following me, then you're either interested in my dad or my brother. Hasn't anyone ever told you that if you're staking out a place you shouldn't park right in front of it in a flashy car? You should invest in something more sedate, maybe a Toyota?"

"That's it," Derek says, getting out of the car and coming around to the passenger side. He yanks Stiles out by his shirt, not even bothering to open the door, just tugging him through the open window and dropping him on his ass on the curb. 

"Ugh, rude," Stiles grumbles, standing up slowly as Derek moves back to the driver's side, slides in, guns the engine and drives away. 

"I'm going to find out what's going on with you!" he calls, and even though Derek would be too far away to hear him, he still pokes a hand out of his car window and flips Stiles off.

*

The next day is a Saturday, and if Stiles had his way, he would be tucked under his blankets in bed until after midday but someone else has other plans, banging on his front door at the ungodly hour of ten in the morning.

Stiles gets downstairs to see a note on the fridge white board. _Had to go in to the station. Be home for dinner - Dad_. He yanks open the front door and is about to bitch at Lucas for waking him when Lucas basically barrels into him, making a sound that's almost like a _growl_ , and pinning Stiles to the entry way wall.

"What is that?" Lucas demands, snarling and his eyes flashing gold and holy crap, Stiles thinks he must be hallucinating or something, but then Lucas blinks, eyes cooling from the gold to the usual blue the same as their dad's. 

"Stiles... what?" he says, eyes darting around like he doesn't remember where he is. "What happened?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Stiles says, tugging his shirts back into place and eying Lucas uncertainly. He's starting to get an idea, a kind of insane notion burbling in the hind quarters of his brain but he doesn't really want to shine a light on it yet. 

"I came over to show you... I took the bandages off this morning and..." Lucas moves away so he can lift his t-shirt and Stiles is looking at smooth, unblemished skin. "Stiles, I don't know what's going on."

"Anything else weird happened?" Stiles asks, herding Lucas into the living room. 

"I can see, hear and smell things I shouldn't be able to. I keep thinking I'm going out of my mind, hearing conversations way too far away. I went running this morning and I circled the smaller preserve twice without getting winded in about half an hour."

"And what happened just now?" Stiles asks carefully.

"I don't know. You didn't smell... right."

"Why do people keep commenting on my smell? I shower. Okay, I didn't last night but that's not a crime-"

"Wait, what? Who else?" Lucas asks and puzzle pieces start dropping for Stiles apparently the same time as Lucas.

"Derek Hale," Stiles says. "I saw him just after the body was found in the forest and then he was here, outside the house yesterday."

"Maybe I should go pay this Hale a visit. Do you know where he'd be?"

"He said something about that area of the forest you found us in being his property. I think the Hale place is near there."

"Okay," Lucas says, nodding stiffly. 

"I'm coming with."

"You're staying here."

"You got bitten by a giant dog, a wound that magically healed and then you can see, hear and smell better than before? This is all starting to sound a bit monster movie to me."

"What do you mean?" Lucas asks slowly.

Stiles curls his hands, making claws and slashes at the air. "Watch out, it's the terrible wolf man," Stiles says in his best approximation of an old B movie voice-over.

"Oh c'mon. There's gotta be some logical explanation for this."

"Oh yeah? What would that be?" Stiles asks, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows.

"Shut up, just, c'mon if you're coming."

"Yes!" Stiles pumps the air with a fist and follows Lucas out to the cruiser.

*

The old Hale house is a burned out skeleton of a thing. Stiles is amazed it's still got a roof considering the spindly, fragile nature of the walls. It looks like it was a grand old place once, odd to be set so far out into the woods with only a dirt road leading up to it.

Lucas doesn't even try to tell Stiles to stay in the car, but Stiles can tell that he wants to. Lucas is letting out this low pitched constant rumble of a growl when Stiles gets out of the car and around to the driver's side and Stiles nudges him with an elbow to get him to stop. 

Lucas starts to approach the house, but then he twitches and heads around the side, face gone curious. "What are you doing?" Stiles asks, trotting after him.

"I don't... something smells back here. Can't you smell it?"

"Like what?"

"It's... kinda muted but I can still..." Lucas gets around to the side of the house and there's a patch of ground that looks freshly turned over.

"Oh, that can't be good," Stiles says. 

"It smells like blood," Lucas says, face shifting from curious to determined and then he's kneeling down, pushing aside dirt with his hands, scraping it back. Stiles hops from foot to foot beside him, dreading what's going to be unearthed. The idea the other night of finding a body had been exciting, but here, in the daylight, with his brother on his hands and knees… Stiles suddenly very desperately doesn't want to see anything of the sort.

Stiles is almost painfully relieved when Lucas digs down and pulls back a clump of earth and there's the head of a wolf. He still lets out a small squeak and Lucas sighs, sitting back and dusting his arms off. He's standing up, picking up a pile of leaves to scrub dirt from his hands when Stiles notices something else that's been uncovered. 

"Uh, Lucas? Look at that flower."

"What?" Lucas says, turning around a little and then shaking his head. "What about it?"

"You ever seen the Wolf Man?" When Lucas looks at him blankly, Stiles shakes his head. "Oh my god, how are we related?" Stiles huffs, crossing to the flower and tugging. It comes free, but it's not just a single flower. Stiles is tugging the end of a long wreath of intertwined vines and flowers, which comes up in a rough circle around the wolf's body. When he yanks the last of the vine free, there's a faint purple pulse in the ground and then, "Holy crap!"

"Stiles, go call it in," Lucas says, staring at the woman's face staring up at them where the wolf had been, dirt-caked and blank-eyed.

"And say _what_? We found a wolf that magically transformed into a woman's body?"

"That we found a woman's body," Lucas says. 

"Lucas-"

"Stiles, just do it."

"This isn't-"

"Stiles!" 

"Alright, going, geez," Stiles says, backing off and shaking his head.

*

Derek Hale is sitting on the back of a squad car, cuffed when Stiles slides around and into the front seat. He's looking at Derek through the security grill and Derek is glaring back, nostrils flaring in fury.

"Were you planning on killing him like that girl? My brother?" Stiles blurts as soon as he’s presented with Derek’s glowering countenance through the security grill. "The girl in the grave, she was a werewolf, wasn't she? Now so is he. Do you like, hunt them or something?"

Derek snorts, rolling his eyes but not denying it and Stiles narrows his own eyes at him. "I won't let you hurt him."

"Just what do you think you can do?"

"I can do... stuff."

"I'm not your problem. Next Friday night, he is."

"Next Friday night? What's next Friday night?"

"The full moon."

"We'll handle it. We'll lock him in."

"It won't work."

"I'm not going to just let you put him down."

"That's not..." Derek sighs, shakes his head. He’s suddenly looking less murderous and more defeated. "Look-"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the Sheriff demands, hauling Stiles out of the car and he's getting really tired of people doing that.

"Would you believe it if I said I was just trying to help?"

"Something's going on with you and Lucas. Out with it," his dad demands.

"What did he tell you?" Stiles hedges.

"Nothing! That's the problem. He can't tell me why he knew there was a body out here."

"That's because he's always been a terrible li... ah, terribly modest about his detective skills."

"Uhuh."

"Don't I get a phone call before an interrogation?"

"Stiles," his dad says, rubbing tiredly over his face.

"Well, I figured if you were going to be questioning me-"

"Stiles was just coming with me. I was following a hunch," Lucas says, appearing behind him and grabbing Stiles by the back of the neck, squeezing gently. Well, at least he probably means to be gentle and Stiles fights the urge to wince. "Haven't you ever had a hunch you just couldn't explain, dad? I mean, just look at where we are. I remember you keeping the files about the fire in this place at home even though everyone kept telling you to let it go, that it was just an accident."

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles sees Derek watching them from the squad car, something unreadable on his face. "I think I'm feeling traumatized. I think I need to leave," Stiles says, tugging on Lucas' arm.

"I'm not done with either of you," their dad warns. 

"Dun, dun, du-un," Lucas intones as he drags Stiles away in a headlock.

*

"So, the medical examiner ruled it was an animal attack and Derek claimed that he came upon the half eaten body of his sister and was so horrified that he wasn't thinking straight, just wanted to bury her properly. It was thin, but they let him go." Scott's looking at Stiles with his mouth hanging open, inhaler clutched loosely in his hand, forgotten. "So-o. That's been my last couple of days. You?"

"Are you messing with me right now?"

“I'm deadly serious. My brother's a werewolf and Derek Hale is some kind of... I don't know. I thought he was a werewolf killer... guy? But, if he buried his sister and she was a werewolf and she was killed by another werewolf, then... I have no idea." Stiles flops back onto his bed dramatically. "Ugh, I thought I had it all figured out. Damn plot twist."

"Should you be telling me this?"

"Probably not, but it's always helped me to verbalize things and you're a good listener."

Scott looks pleased with the compliment for a second before his expression sobers. "This is... I mean, wow dude. Werewolves are real?"

"I don't know if all the lore's correct, I'm still researching but yeah, the core truth, the man-wolf, is a true thing."

"Awesome. You think other stuff's real then, like goblins and dragons and trolls?"

"Ugh, one crisis at a time, thanks."

Scott gets a faraway look on his face. "Mermaids, man."

"Our luck, they're the vicious, drag you down to the depths and eat you slowly kind if they are real."

"You want to play Mario Kart for a while? Might help you think."

"I should..." Stiles says, walking his fingers over the pile of books he's accumulated just over the last couple of days, but they keep walking until they land on his game controller and he smiles. "Yes, yes I do," he decides, because Stiles figures he deserves a little normalcy after the days he's had.

"If I kick your ass, don't sic your werewolf brother on me."

"You're taking this all surprisingly well."

"So are you," Scott counters and Stiles nods slowly, accepting the point. 

After a companionable few minutes of silence where they get through the welcome screen and pick their characters, Stiles sighs. “You don't believe me, do you?"

"I'm about eighty percent there, I swear," Scott promises. 

"I'll get Lucas to wolf out for you."

"Please don't. I'm comfortable at eighty percent."

"Fair enough."

"Oh, hey. Did you see the new girl at school?"

*

Someone shoves Stiles hard into his locker the next day, leans into him and says, "Why do you smell like that?"

"Oh c'mon, I shower way more than the average teenage boy," Stiles complains, craning around as much as he can with a hand in the middle of his shoulder blades still pressing him against the lockers and then he blinks in surprise. The last time he saw Erica Reyes she'd been swaddled in about fifteen layers of _don't look at me_ clothes and hugging the walls. 

She definitely looks... different now.

"I'm not talking about your boy-stank Stilinski," she sneers with a vibrantly red-painted mouth, allowing Stiles to turn all the way around but still keeping him caged in with her arms on either side of his shoulders. She has Isaac Lahey, chest-talker and nicknamed _Spooky_ because he dug graves as a part-time job and Vernon Boyd who generally had an area of solitary affect around him flanking her, also looking perplexed and... with a sinking feeling Stiles knows what this is.

"Ugh, more werewolves, really?" Stiles groans and Erica snatches her hands away like they were burned, eyes wide.

"What did you just say?" she hisses.

"Look, the supernatural makeover is obviously... working for you guys, but I have my own crap to deal with right now so I'd really like it if you-" Stiles doesn't get to finish his sentence, because Isaac leans past Erica, grabs him by the shirt collar and yanks Stiles around, propelling him into the empty classroom opposite. 

Stiles flails, nearly pitching over the first desk he encounters, but he manages to right himself, only to turn and find the three new wolves in the doorway blocking his escape. "Uh, let me rephrase. How can I help you?" Stiles says in a voice that would be generously called a squeak.

"You can tell us what the hell is going on," Boyd says, crossing his arms and looking menacing. He's not someone Stiles would have ever picked as a loomer, but he's looming now, like he took an advanced class in intimidation.

"You knew what we are. How?" Isaac presses. Stiles hadn't ever realized how tall Isaac was, mostly because he'd walked hunched over, like he would disappear into the floor if he was able to. He's standing upright now, chin lifted and eyes bright. 

"I watch too many monster movies?" Stiles tries and Erica slowly shakes her head.

"That's a lie. We can hear when you lie, Stilinski," she says, advancing on him, close enough she can place a hand over his heart and drum her fingers against his chest. "This gives it away when you lie."

Stiles frowns down at Erica's hand and then back up at her. If he can't lie, which is basically his best defense, but he's not willing to give away Lucas just yet, he's going to have to get creative. "The body in the woods. I went to have a look, got busted. They said it was an animal attack but it wasn't." All true and Erica's raised eyebrow and dropped hand attest to it.

"How do you get from there to werewolf?" Boyd presses.

"I met one... I think," Stiles says, referring to Derek and his unconfirmed suspicions of Derek’s role in all this. Again, while not the whole truth, he’s telling enough of it that Erica relaxes completely, cocking her head.

"That's why you smell like that?"

"I guess so?" Stiles says, thankful that he's not sure who's scent he would be sporting to a delicate werewolf nose, Lucas' or Derek's. It's probably a mixture of both.

"Who is it?" Isaac asks and his haughty look has dropped away, replaced with something like longing.

"Wait, you guys don't know?"

"I got attacked while I was working," Isaac says. "What I thought was a giant dog or something. Then stuff... changed."

"I was bitten while I was waiting to be picked up from an appointment," Erica adds, her face vulnerable for only a second as she adds, "Sometimes my mom... forgets."

"Locking up the Ice rink," Boyd volunteers and then they're all looking at Stiles like he's holding the keys to the mystery.

Stiles sighs, scrubs a hand over his face and then looks at them. "You guys up for playing hookey?" They all nod eagerly, bustling to move out of Stiles' path to the door. "C'mon, then," Stiles says and they follow him out to the school parking lot like a procession of baby ducks. 

"Shotgun!" Isaac crows as they get closer to the jeep and there's a shoving match that Stiles has to break up before the jeep ends up tipped over.

*

Derek's outside on the sagging porch of the Hale house when Stiles pulls up. The wolves pile out, eager and cautious at once, looking like they want to crowd Derek but unsure of their welcome.

"What's this?" Derek asks slowly, eyes on Stiles as Erica, Isaac and Boyd all jostle each other and start to whine quietly amongst themselves.

"I've been thinking," Stiles starts, getting out of the jeep more sedately and ticking off points on his fingers. "Your sister was killed by an _animal_ , not by you. My... people I know have gotten bitten and they don’t know by who. You seemed genuinely surprised that I smelled the way I did the first time you saw me _and_ you're still hanging around."

"Which means?"

"You didn't bite... these guys did you?" Stiles asks, leaves the additional _or my brother_ unsaid, but knows Derek understands anyway.

"No," Derek says. 

"You're sticking around because of who did?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who it is?"

"No."

"Are you going to give me more than one word answers?"

Derek's lips twitch a little despite the seriousness of the conversation. "Maybe."

"Can someone tell us what's going on?" Erica presses, shuffling Stiles aside, albeit gently this time.

"You were bitten by an Alpha werewolf, someone who's trying to build a pack quickly. The same Alpha werewolf that killed my sister for its power so I can't imagine its plans for whoever it turns are good ones."

"I don't want to hurt anybody," Boyd pipes up with concern on his features.

"You won't have a choice. At the full moon, it'll call you to it and you'll do... whatever it wants."

"No way," Erica says, crossing her arms.

"What can we do?" Isaac asks.

"I can help you, try to teach you a little control. I can bind you on the full moon. It might draw the Alpha out."

"You want to use us for bait?" Erica snarls.

"I don't see any other choice."

"Forget this," Erica dismisses, making for the jeep but Boyd catches her elbow, turning her back around.

"How do we know you're not the one that bit us?" Boyd asks, still holding onto Erica and leaning into Isaac when he presses closer.

"I'm not an Alpha. You'll know an Alpha when you see one because its eyes are red." Derek blinks and his eyes flip to an icy blue before warming back to their usual color. "We're coming up to the full moon. You probably have a lot of energy to burn off and no way to channel it. First lesson, go for a run, it'll help."

Stiles watches the others glance at each other, shrug and then they're kicking off their shoes, shedding jackets and taking off through the forest, whooping and shoving at each other. 

"You've got an hour and then I'm out of here!" Stiles calls behind them.

"I'm starting to get the feeling that you're a magnet for trouble," Derek observes as Stiles digs his phone out of his pocket and then flops down on the bottom porch step of the house. Stiles had assumed that Derek would give chase to the others and had been ready to squish zombies for an hour to kill some time but Derek lowers down to sit on the step above and to the right of him, squinting into the trees.

"Everyone has to have a talent."

"They're going to adopt you if you're not careful."

"I already have a dad," Stiles says, frowning and the corner of Derek's mouth lifts, just the tiniest bit.

"I don't mean like that. They're newly bitten werewolves. The instinct to form a pack is a strong one, that's how they would have found each other so quickly. You smell like wolf and you've already helped them out so they're liable to get confused."

"Like baby wereducklings? Wait, is imprinting a thing for werewolves?"

"Not exactly. Just, don't be surprised if they decide you're theirs."

"I'm my own man," Stiles says loftily and Derek outright snorts this time. "It's alright. I've got room in my social calendar."

"I'm not talking about hanging out playing video games. They'll get protective and worse, possessive."

"They're people," Stiles points out and Derek gives him a flat look.

"Not anymore. Not really."

"What was it like, for you? When you were bitten?" Stiles asks, tucking his phone away.

"I wasn't."

"I thought you were-?"

"I am. I was born this way."

"Woah, awesome. Wait, does that mean your whole family...?" Stiles kind of flails backwards at the house, mystified as to how a bunch of _werewolves_ lived in Beacon Hills and no one was the wiser.

"Most of us. My dad was human, so was one of my little sisters and a couple of cousins. My Uncle's wife. My grandparents on my dad's side, obviously."

"You all lived here?"

"Some packs are made up of individuals for power and protection. Most are family groups though and it... just feels right to stay together."

"It must've been nice, having a big family," Stiles says wistfully, then winces when Derek's eyes tighten.

"It was."

"It's just me, my dad and Lucas. I'm pretty sure I was a surprise. Dad always says I'm late to everything, even my own birth." Stiles clasps his hands together, thinking of how tiny his family unit is, how it's all he has and if anything were to happen to either Lucas or his dad-

Derek's hand lands on his shoulder and rubs. Stiles looks up at him, surprised but Derek isn't looking back at him. His focus has gone back to the forest and he's raised an eyebrow. "They've circled back. They think they're being stealthy," Derek says in a low voice, looking more amused than Stiles has ever seen.

"Thanks for helping them."

"You should tell your brother to come back and see me, I can help him too."

"We can handle it," Stiles dismisses and fights the urge to meet Derek's level gaze that he can feel pressing against the side of his face like a physical thing.

*

Stiles leaves the new wolves in the woods with Derek because it seems an hour of running around isn't quite enough and he knows if he stays longer, Derek will press about Lucas. He goes home, orders pizza because his dad's on nights, plays some Xbox but gives up and goes to bed early, hoping the restless feeling under his skin will go away with sleep.

He wakes up overheated and with a foot mooshed in his face.

"What the hell?" Stiles flails, or tries to, but he's pinned down. He's about to actually panic when a girl's voice says, "Muhuh?"

" _Erica_?" Stiles gawps up at his darkened ceiling and then he manages to unearth a hand long enough to paw for his bedside lamp and tap it on. It's not just Erica, but Isaac and Boyd all crammed into his bed. He's really glad his dad sprang for the double when his last growth spurt had his feet hanging over the end of his old single. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

It's Isaac's foot in his face and Stiles pinches the instep until it's pulled away, Isaac grumbling sleepily. He remembers Derek warning him about the new werewolves getting attached to him but he hadn't thought that meant invading his life while he was in his pajamas. 

"Just felt... right," Boyd says from his place stretched across the foot of Stiles' bed. He, at least, looks marginally apologetic for giving Stiles a mild heart attack. 

"It _feels_ super weird," Stiles corrects, proceeding to wiggle, complain and poke until he can pull himself free of the makeshift puppy pile. And that's what it is, an actual _puppy pile_ of all things. He wouldn't normally complain since the werewolf makeover is really working for his three interlopers and there are worse ways to wake up than to a hot trio in your bed, but Stiles gets the feeling this is more about comfort and safety than sexy times and he already has his own werewolf problems. He doesn't need more. 

"Can't you go play stacks-on Derek?" Stiles says, getting up and crossing over to his desk to slump into the chair. 

"I think he sleeps in that burned out building. It's pretty depressing there," Isaac says, rubbing a fist into his eye like a tired kid.

"That was his family's house," Stiles says absently.

"Uh, that makes it more depressing, not less," Isaac points out.

"You're just lucky my dad's not home. I'm not sure the _it's not what it looks like_ works on him."

"It's just a sleepover. We're all dressed," Erica dismisses, flopping back down with her head on Boyd's thigh. Her sideways smirk turns dangerous though and she fingers her top, saying, "Unless-"

"No, clothed is good. Really good," Stiles blurts and she rolls her eyes but leaves her shirt in place which is both disappointing and a relief at the same time. 

"Come back to bed," Isaac says through a yawn. "We'll leave before your dad gets home."

It's... really tempting is the problem. They all smell like wild things and sleep at the same time. Stiles can't see where he'd fit now that he's up because they sprawled to take up the vacated space but Erica puts out her arm, makes a grabby hand at him and Stiles sighs gustily before getting up and crossing back to them.

He gets folded back in easily and it’s infuriatingly comfortable. Stiles knows he's playing with fire, picking up strays like this but that's a problem for the morning. "You guys totally have to make yourself scarce before sunrise and I don't want to hear any _yon light is not daylight_ crap."

*

Stiles wakes up alone with the sounds of people talking and breakfast noises in the kitchen below. Stiles rolls out of bed, groaning and tromps downstairs, getting halfway through grumbling, "I thought you guys were going to-" before he notices that his dad is there, pouring cereal into a bowl for Erica while Boyd hands him a cup of coffee.

"Um, hi?" Stiles says, squishing his face up because he figures he's about to be yelled at but his dad just gives him a smile and waggles the cereal box at him. 

"You want?"

"O-kay," Stiles says slowly and pulls himself onto the stool next to Isaac, making sure to _accidentally_ jab Isaac in the ribs with his elbow as he does. Isaac very pointedly remains absorbed in the toast he's eating but he has the good grace to blush.

"I was just telling the Sheriff how nice it was for you to let us crash here after our study session ran late for our group Biology project," Erica says brightly. She's wearing his _I'm amazing covered in awesomesauce_ t-shirt and Stiles narrows his eyes at her. She just blinks back at him, guileless.

"I'm just glad Stiles is making an effort to be more social," his dad says and Stiles turns a betrayed grimace on him.

"Dad!"

"I love Scott, you know I do, but ever since first grade you've only ever been interested in having him as a friend and that's it. I worry."

"Aw," Erica says, leaning over the kitchen counter to rub at Stiles' head and he ducks her, scowling.

"I've got a double so I just came home to get a fresh shirt and some breakfast. You guys stay as long as you like," his dad says, rounding the kitchen counter so he can sling an arm around Stiles and drag him along back to the entryway. "Soooo, anything happening with you and... any of them?" his dad asks, grinning conspiratorially.

There's the sound of a dropped spoon from the kitchen but his dad doesn't pay it any mind. He asked quietly and _normal_ people wouldn't have been able to overhear but Stiles has a bunch of werewolves in the kitchen who are probably hanging on every word.

"Oh my god," Stiles says feelingly. "Please go back to work."

"I'm just asking," his dad says, holding up his hands, his grin going wider. 

"Out," Stiles says, planting his hands on his dad's back and shuffling him towards the door. He catches his dad's elbow though right before he's through and says, "Wait, you've got a double? You covering for anyone?"

"Lucas actually. He called in sick. You wanna swing by his apartment and check on him before school?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Stiles agrees, immediately worried and pasting a smile over it.

"I still wish you’d level with me, whatever the hell it is that’s going on with you two."

"It's not... we're fine."

"You looking after each other at least?"

"Yes."

"That's good, I guess," his dad allows. He's gone with that and Stiles trudges back to the kitchen, feeling like a giant jerk for having to lie to his dad. 

"You okay?" Erica asks. There was a teasing light in Erica's eyes that disappears as soon as she catches a look at his face.

"You can't adopt my dad," Stiles snaps.

"Too bad. He's totally a DILF," she says, hitting Stiles square in the middle of the forehead with a precisely aimed corner of toast.

"Gross!" Stiles huffs, stomping back up to his room.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles chases the werewolves out about an hour later, then grabs his backpack and heads towards Derek's, at a loss where else to go. He tries Lucas' apartment on the way, but is unsurprised to find it empty. What he is surprised by is finding Lucas sitting on Derek's porch when he drives up.

"What are you doing here?" Stiles asks when he gets out of the jeep. Lucas is wearing a t-shirt and running shorts and Stiles can't see the cruiser anywhere so he figures Lucas ran into the preserve from town. He doesn't look flushed or sweaty at all though, just sitting sedately playing with one of his sneaker laces, hunched over himself.

"I woke up in the middle of the woods this morning. I don't remember leaving the house. I wanted to ask Derek about it, maybe alongside apologizing for getting him arrested for his sister's murder."

"Oh, that. I'm sure that's water under the bridge," Stiles says, waving a dismissive hand. 

"Still," Lucas says, eyes not leaving his shoes.

"So, kill any small woodland creatures? Did you eat something raw?" Stiles presses, morbidly fascinated. 

"I don't know, Stiles. I was pretty freaked out. I could've hurt someone."

"No way," Stiles says but stills when Lucas looks up at him and his face is stricken.

"I could've hurt _you_ , or dad."

"You wouldn't hurt us."

"Are you sure? Because I'm not. I lost hours last night. I could've done anything. Derek said that Alpha could _make_ me do anything."

"You're stubborn. I doubt-"

"Stiles, seriously. Stop burying your head in the sand. This is... supernatural. I need help, or to get away or something."

"You can't leave."

"I don't want to, but I can't risk..." Lucas raises his hands, curls and uncurls his fingers a few times in Stiles' direction. Lucas has always been huge to Stiles, his hulking big brother, but right now he looks small and lost. 

"I'll help you," Derek says, appearing at the top of the porch steps. He's barefoot, in only jeans and a Henley and Stiles' mouth goes a little dry. _Not the time_ , he firmly tells his traitorous libido. "I already offered but Stiles-"

"This has nothing to do with him. Go home, Stiles. You shouldn't be out here," Lucas says firmly and Stiles opens his mouth to protest but Lucas just throws him a stern look. 

"But-"

"Stiles," Derek says, his voice far more gentle than Lucas'.

"Fine, be all supernatural without me. See if I care."

"Stay out of it!" Lucas calls when Stiles kicks his way back through the fallen leaves surrounding Derek's house to the jeep.

"Bite me!" Stiles throws over his shoulder before getting in and peeling away.

He should go to school, but Stiles finds himself driving around idly instead for hours. The jeep is pretty conspicuous but he's lucky for once in his life and doesn't encounter any patrol cars. He finally heads back to school in the afternoon right when it's letting out after messaging Scott to tell him he'll pick him up.

"Hey, how's... everything?" Scott asks hesitantly, pulling himself up into the jeep. Stiles spots Isaac, Erica and Boyd hovering at the edge of the carpark so he pulls away quickly before they can make a decision about whether to approach him or not.

"Apparently not my concern," Stiles huffs and Scott, being the friend that he is, dutifully drops the subject and instead agrees readily to burgers and then games back at Stiles' place. 

It's dark by the time they get out of Rosie's diner, stuffed to the gills from extra serves of curly fries. The video store is just across the road and Stiles makes a beeline for it. He's bored to death of everything he owns but he's also a broke teenager so he figures they can hire some new games to try out.

The video store is pretty deserted when they head inside, which is to be expected these days. Stiles is surprised the place is still open, but it seems to be hanging on by virtue of a still brisk trade in adult movies, or so he'd heard. Scott wanders off towards the new release section while Stiles heads for the games. 

It doesn't register at first, when he sees it, because it's so out of place standing in the middle of the well-lit video store. He dismisses it as one of those freestanding cardboard cut-outs but then it _moves_.

"Holy crap," Stiles squeaks, backing up fast when the huge, furry black monster paces sedately towards him, eyes sunken deep in matted fur but still glowing a hellish red. It's not exactly a wolf, but Stiles can see how it could be mistaken for one if it was moving fast. It looks like some B-movie pastiche of every bad werewolf movie monster he's ever seen and a clear slime drips from its hinged open jaws as a low rumbling starts up deep in its chest.

"Niiiiiice, doggy," Stiles croons, putting his hands up and out, still backing up. He doesn't risk taking his eyes off it so eventually he backs into a rack of DVDs that wobble behind him before tipping over with a loud crash. 

"Stiles?" Scott calls from the other side of the store and the monster's huge head swings in that direction. 

"No! Hey!" Stiles says, suddenly desperate to keep the werewolf's attention on him, although it's probably suicide. He, at least, has a chance to outrun it but Scott wouldn't be able to if he panics and his lungs close up. "Scott, get out of the store!" Stiles calls desperately, still swinging his arms.

"What?" Scott says and his voice is _much_ closer. He appears at the end of the action movie aisle the werewolf is standing in and he freezes, partly because of the werewolf and partly because he almost trips over a guy in a t-shirt with the video store logo on the breast and no head. The guy's head is _gone_ and Scott makes a horrible little noise when his sneaker slips in blood.

The werewolf's upper lip curls back like he's almost grinning and then he swings around and leaps at Scott. Stiles takes a step forward automatically but Scott is down already, underneath the monster. Stiles only manages to take three more stumbling steps before he sees the werewolf bite down on the curve of Scott's hip, shake him like a doll and then toss him aside.

"Scott!" Stiles almost screams. He picks up a handful of DVD cases and starts lobbing them at the werewolf, trying to distract it. One of them hits the werewolf in the snout and it shakes its massive head and turns back to Stiles. It crouches down, ready to spring and then leaps. Stiles hits the floor and the werewolf sails over him and through the video store's front window. He hears a scream from outside, the sound of screeching brakes and then a series of thumps that fade away rapidly.

Stiles pushes himself up slowly, feeling shaky with unspent adrenalin and horror. He's expecting to see his lifelong best friend dead, but as he crawls forward slowly Scott rolls over with a hurt noise.

"Scott!" Stiles scrabbles forward more quickly, hands reaching as Scott pushes himself up to sitting, arms curled around his torso. "Are you okay? Of course you're not okay! How are you alive? Are you going to stay that way? I thought you were _dead_ , oh my god-"

"I think... hospital..." Scott groans and Stiles gets an arm under Scott's on his uninjured side.

"Yes, Jesus! Can you-?" Stiles starts to say, but then he nearly drops Scott because he recovers from shock enough for his brain to come back online and register that Scott was just _bitten_. 

"Stiles, are you alright? You just went really pale, man," Scott says. His face is lined with pain and he still manages to look concerned about _Stiles_. 

"No, sorry, I'm good," Stiles says hurriedly, because he doesn't know anything for sure yet. Maybe that _was_ just a giant, rabid dog and he's not about to drop a bombshell on Scott's head like possibly, most likely, almost definitely, he's going to turn into a werewolf. Not when he's bleeding and hunkered over awkwardly and completely relying on Stiles to keep his head and get him some help. 

Scott takes a moment to give Stiles the _don't keep things from me_ puppy face, but then he winces and Stiles very carefully readjusts his grip on Scott and then starts moving him gingerly towards the door and the waiting jeep. A couple of people have gathered outside the broken-out window to gawp but Stiles ignores them, intent on his goal.

*

Stiles is sitting in the waiting room staring at the oversized clock-calendar combo on the wall opposite. It's Wednesday which means he has just two days until the full moon and he has no idea if Lucas is ready for it, if the other new werewolves are, if Scott will-

"Stiles," his dad says, almost right next to him and Stiles jerks, toppling off the uncomfortable hospital chair. His dad catches him mid-flail, face patient like he's used to it and sets Stiles carefully upright. 

"Hey, dad," Stiles says, rubbing over his face tiredly.

"Want to tell me why a bunch of people swear they saw you leaving the video store with Scott where we found a _beheaded body_?" His dad gets the question out all in a rush, like he can't really believe he's asking it.

"Oh, uh-"

"If you're going to lie, just don't even bother," his dad says, holding up a hand. His face is stern, all the warmth leached out of it and Stiles suddenly realizes that he might be in trouble. Really bad trouble.

"We didn't kill anyone," Stiles splutters, horrified to think that that's where this line of questioning is leading. 

"Jesus, kid," his dad groans. "I didn't think you did. There was some kind of rabid dog or something. The body was obviously shredded by an animal. I just want to know what you were doing there and why you left a crime scene without calling the police?"

"Scott was hurt," Stiles defends, has never been more relieved in his life to see Melissa appear in the waiting room entryway, holding a clipboard. 

"He's fine," Melissa interrupts, smiling warmly at the Sheriff, her expression tilting more stern when she glances at Stiles. "There was a lot of blood but there's really not much damage. Barely a scratch."

Stiles blinks, because he'd seen the bite. It had been huge and ugly, about the size of two of his hands from thumb to little finger across, the teeth punctures deep and horrible. Scott's shirt had been shredded and he'd bled all over Stiles' upholstery. It was basically a slasher flick come to life so it didn't make sense that it wasn't that bad after all, except...

Stiles belatedly remembered Lucas showing him blemish-free skin only the day after he'd been bitten and swallows thickly. 

"-shots are up to date. Otherwise he's all good," Melissa is saying, still glancing between Stiles and the Sheriff, eyes gone suspicious. "Scott didn't tell me where he was?" she adds, leading.

"We were at the video store. The clerk was already..." Stiles makes his eyes go big and wide, traumatized enough to hopefully spark his dad's sympathy. "The big dog jumped out and knocked Scott over. We panicked because he was bleeding and I just wanted to get him here."

"Okay, but you should have called me. You'll have to come to the station to make a statement," his dad says, putting a heavy hand on Stiles's shoulder and giving him the, _if you think we're done here, you're crazy_ look he'd had to perfect over the years of being father to Stiles. 

"Can't I see Scott?" Stiles pleads, throwing an imploring glance between the two parents. Scott had gotten quiet as they'd drawn nearer to the hospital, raising his shirt every now and again to poke at the bite with his face pensive. He must have _felt_ something and Stiles was desperate to find him and reassure him because, despite what some people think because of Scott's ready smile and guileless face, he isn't stupid. 

He knows about the werewolves. He knows how people _become_ werewolves. He's probably put two and two together already.

"I'm getting someone to cover so I can take him home. I think you guys have had enough excitement tonight," Melissa says. Stiles knows that Melissa's always been waiting on tenterhooks for Stiles to get her son into some kind of trouble. Scott's a good kid with a strong moral core and Stiles is more... flexible than that. She's probably as concerned as his own dad is about the two of them only having each other.

"But-"

"C'mon, we're going to the station," his dad says, hooking an arm around Stiles' neck and tugging him out of the waiting room. "You used to love doing my paperwork."

"Ugh," Stiles says feelingly.

*

"Who is this?" Derek's voice is gravelly like he just woke up when he answers his phone.

"Oh, uh, it's Stiles?" he says, then hits himself in the forehead with his own phone.

"How did you get my number?" Derek doesn't sound upset about it, more surprised. 

Stiles honestly hadn't been sure if Derek _had_ a phone, living in the burnt out remnants of his home and all, but when Stiles had brought the other werewolves over and Derek had left his jacket on the porch to go join them in the woods after Stiles made noises about leaving, Stiles had checked the pockets and found one. It was blocky and ancient, the screen not even color but Stiles smiled to see something so mundane in Derek's possession. He'd called himself so he had Derek's number, told himself it was in case of emergencies and put the phone back before leaving.

"Look, there was another, uh, attack. It was Scott. He got bitten," Stiles says. There's a surprised intake of breath from Derek's end and then a pause, like he's not sure what to say.

"Are _you_ okay?" Derek finally asks slowly and there's something weird about his voice. 

"Werewolf puncture free," Stiles reports dutifully and there's another patch of silence. "So, I was hoping you'd go and talk to him? About everything," Stiles rounds to the point of the call.

"You'd trust me to do that? To tell him?" Derek asks, sounding surprised.

"He knows the basics," Stiles says, and when Derek makes a displeased noise, he rushes to add, "He's my best friend. I don't want him to be scared, okay? I want someone to talk to him that doesn't think this is the worst thing that could ever happen."

"It's not," Derek says immediately and Stiles makes an, _exactly my point_ noise.

"He needs to know what's going to happen and that there's someone willing to help him. You are, right?"

"Of course," Derek says immediately and Stiles lets out the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. "What changed though? You didn't want my help with Lucas."

" _I_ wanted to help Lucas. I messed it up though, like everything I do. Scott deserves-"

"Stiles." Derek interrupts. "Lucas isn't pulling away because you _failed_ him or anything. Is that what you think?"

"He's right. He could've hurt someone. I was too stubborn to believe it."

"Lucas is terrified that he'll hurt _you_. He wants to keep you safe and he thinks the best way to do that is to keep you at a distance from all of this. I can't say I don't agree."

"I get it. I'm not invited to the werewolf jamboree."

"Don't be such a teenager, Christ," Derek huffs.

"I can't help it, I am one," Stiles says, indignant.

"Yeah, I _know_ ," Derek says, sounding strangely put out about it.

"Despite what both of you may want, I'm involved. My brother's a werewolf, now my best friend possibly. I have three other werewolves who want me to be their mama-wolf or whatever. I don't think it would be possible to extricate myself, even if I wanted to."

"Try."

"And what are _you_ doing? Have you been trying to find this Alpha werewolf? Where the hell is he when he's not biting wayward teenagers?"

"I don't know," Derek says, sounding supremely frustrated. 

"Why aren't you out there, tracking him down? That's something werewolves can do isn't it?"

"There's a complication with that. I have to be careful."

"Why, because he could Edward Scissorhands you into chopped liver?"

"No, there's other players on the board. _That_ kind of complication."

"Who?"

"Remember how you thought I was maybe hunting werewolves? That's actually a real thing, although it's not me."

"Oh my god, what?" Stiles groans. As if they don't have enough problems.

"There's a family of them, the Argents," Derek continues. "They came into town a little while ago. At least the Alpha hasn't killed anyone else."

"No, he's just been bite-happy."

"Stiles, these people are the shoot first, ask questions later kind. I've already warned Lucas and I've told the others to lay low."

"Can they... is there a way the hunters can tell?" Stiles asks, scared for both his brother and Scott, for Erica, Boyd and Isaac. He's imagining shady figures with large guns pursuing them through the woods.

"Not exactly. They're good at recognizing the signs, though."

"Maybe they'll get the bad guy and go away?" Stiles hedges, although life is very rarely that fair or convenient.

"If they find an Alpha werewolf, especially if he's feral like he seems to be, they'll look for betas. An Alpha's main drive is to form a pack, especially if they feel threatened."

"Crap," Stiles sighs and Derek makes a noise of agreement. 

"Just, try to stay out of it as much as you can," Derek presses.

"Fine, whatever, but if Lucas or Scott are in any danger, all bets are off."

"Yeah, I figured."

"What's the plan for Friday?"

"My house has a reinforced basement area. I'll lock everyone in and we'll wait it out."

"Of course your house has a dungeon," Stiles snorts.

"It's not a dungeon."

"Just keep telling yourself that."

"You shouldn't..." Derek starts to say and Stiles knows what the end of that sentence is going to be. Derek is warning him off, telling him to stay away.

"Alright. No werewolves," Stiles says.

"You can come by in the morning Saturday, bring lots of breakfast sandwiches."

"I'm not the werewolf food delivery guy," Stiles grumbles, knowing he'll do it anyway. He's pretty sure Derek knows it too.

*

Thursday night his window pushes up and Stiles is ready, hosing Isaac down with a veritable water cannon he'd unearthed from the attic. Isaac squawks and falls back out the window. There's a series of dull thumps and then an _oof_ as Isaac apparently tumbles right off the roof and into the bushes below.

Erica peers carefully around the edge of the window, holding up a peace sign. "Don't shoot."

"I'm pretty sure Derek would've told you to stay away from me."

"He told us to lay low. What better place than the Sheriff's?" 

Stiles sets down the water gun and then picks up a second one beside his desk chair. "Next one gets budget brand Cola. Stingy and sticky."

"Stiles?" 

Stiles stands when he recognizes Scott's voice and he approaches the window, pushing it the rest of the way open and leaning out. Boyd is hunkered behind Erica and Scott is at his back. "Are you a hostage?" Stiles asks archly. He wouldn't put it past the trio of betas to use Scott as a way of bargaining inside.

"Just let us in. I'd say loitering on a roof would be seen as suspicious behavior and we're supposed to curb that shit," Scott says.

"Alright," Stiles relents, setting the gun down and stepping back. Erica's the first through, pausing to drop a smacking kiss on Stiles' cheek. Boyd offers him a nod next and then Scott brings up the rear, barely through before Stiles catches him up in a tight hug.

"I'm soaked and I think my arm is broken!" Isaac's disembodied voice floats up to them.

"Use the door. My dad's not here," Stiles calls back when he releases Scott. "You'd all know that if you called me before you came over."

Stiles leads the others downstairs to let Isaac in and then steps back, horrified when Isaac comes through with his arm hanging limply at his side at an unnatural angle. "Oh my god, I thought you were _joking_. Do you need the hospital?"

"Nah," Isaac says, stepping further inside, holding his arm against his body awkwardly. "I busted my leg falling into an empty grave just after I was bitten. Took about four hours to heal. This should be good in about half that."

"Woah," Scott breathes.

"Well, that's cool. Gross, but cool," Stiles says.

Rather than squeezing everyone into his bed again, Stiles and Scott construct an epic blanket fort in the living room. Stiles smiles to himself as he tosses pillows inside, only _mostly_ accidentally hitting Isaac in the face with them who'd crawled inside prematurely when construction was only about seventy percent complete. He ceases fire though when he feels gentle fingers against his neck.

"Thanks for this," Erica says, looking much more like the Erica of old, vulnerable and large-eyed. 

"No sweat," Stiles dismisses.

She shakes herself, pastes on a wicked smile and says, "Your dad coming home anytime soon?"

"I will throw up. I will throw up _all over you_ ," Stiles says and Erica laughs.

*

It seems a little anti-climatic to go to school on Friday. Stiles thinks about ditching like the others, all at Derek's place by now since Derek had said that the day before the moon could be a little fraught, but his dad is home watching him like a hawk that morning, so he packs his bag and leaves at the normal time and there's really nowhere else he can go.

Stiles is sitting by himself at lunchtime, picking unenthusiastically at what passes for tuna bake according to the culinary staff at Beacon Hills High school when Lydia Martin sits down opposite him and drums her painted nails on the table.

Stiles blinks at her, looks around for a moment and then back at her. Lydia is smart, beautiful and was the crush of his life up until his life got turned upside down and also started having fleeting cameos of werewolf hotness. Stiles reaches down deep for those old feelings, but they seem far away now. His heart should be racing, he should be sweating, but he's just... not. Worrying about Lucas and now Scott has taken up so much of his time that he's completely let go of anything else.

Lydia's looking at him expectantly, one perfect eyebrow raised and Stiles finally blurts, "What?" for lack of a better opener.

"You haven't asked me to prom."

"Wha-at?" Stiles says a little slower.

"You haven't asked me to prom yet," Lydia repeats. More than a few people are glancing over at their table, looking about as perplexed as Stiles feels at Lydia's presence in front of him. Most notably is her boyfriend Jackson, already seated with a few of the other better Lacrosse players across the cafeteria. Stiles sees Jackson's best friend Danny lean into him to say something and Jackson responds with a shake of his head and a frown.

"I'm sorry?" Stiles says, because it seems appropriate, and Lydia gives him an exasperated huff.

"I don't want your apology. I want to know what's going on."

"Isn't prom, like, still a few weeks away?" Stiles asks.

"Exactly three," Lydia confirms.

"Um, so..."

"You always ask me to school social events _four_ weeks before."

"You always turn me down."

"Exactly. So, what's going on?"

"I have no idea what you want me to say," Stiles says, pushing his tray aside and rubbing at his face tiredly. "Do you _want_ to go to the prom with me?"

"No," Lydia says and Stiles throws his hands up.

"Okay? Feel better? Planets aligned?" Stiles says, indignant. 

"Isaac, Erica and Boyd all come to school looking like they've been beaten with the makeover stick, all of them _and_ Scott are off school today, you look like you haven't slept in days and I've seen that shirt you're wearing three times this week," Lydia says, ticking points off on her fingers.

Stiles looks down at himself and grimaces. His cupcake shirt probably has seen more than the usual level of rotation in the last week and there's a stain on the bottom hem that looks like taco sauce which he doesn't even remember eating, but it's a little weird that someone like Lydia noticed.

"Maybe I really like this shirt and I have three of them," he says, missing a believable tone of voice by a mile.

"Okay, I approached this wrong," Lydia says, sitting back. Her hand is up at her throat, fingers playing with a necklace there and Stiles can see the edges of a bandage poking out from underneath her collar.

"What happened to you?" Stiles asks and Lydia notices where his attention is and drops her hand.

"I need you to tell me something is going on, because otherwise I'm going crazy," Lydia says in a low voice.

"Oh no," Stiles groans, because bandaging, plus person thinking that freaky stuff is happening does not equal a good time. If Lydia is a werewolf-

"Please. I need to know what you know."

"Not now," Stiles says, because Jackson's been glaring at him for the past ten minutes and he's pretty sure if Lydia doesn't head over there, then Jackson is going to come to them. "I've got a free next. Meet me in the library?" Stiles dives into his bag for a second, paws quickly through to find a book he can do without to hand over so Lydia has an excuse for deigning to talk to him.

She accepts the notebook Stiles hands over, her mouth firms down into a little line and she nods. She gets up in a swirl of skirt and citrus perfume, shoulders her bag and clacks over to Jackson's table, making a show of flipping through the book as she walks. Jackson flails his hands when she reaches him and Lydia smacks him in the forehead with the book before sliding into a seat next to Danny and stealing a sip of his soda, looking completely unbothered.

Stiles gathers up his stuff, appetite well and truly vanished and makes for the library early. He can waste time on the ancient computer playing Solitaire until Lydia gets there because Mrs. Filipani loves him and lets him use the one behind the reference desk that hasn't had the games disabled.

Stiles has beaten his current best high score at Frogger when Lydia finally appears. She's looking more unsure of herself than he's ever seen her. She's usually the most confident person in the school and it hurts to see her this way. He supposes he isn't as immune to her as he thought he was, but he steels himself and stands, waving her over to the reference desk because Mrs Filipani has disappeared which means she's having a smoke behind the library like a teenager so they'll be relatively free to talk.

Lydia sits in the second swivel chair available and puts her purse primly in her lap, obviously waiting for Stiles to spill everything he knows. Stiles takes a deep, girding breath and says, "Okay, you're not crazy. Werewolves are real. They're an actual thing."

"Cute," Lydia snaps and stands. Stiles grabs for her, tugging her back down into her seat and she glares at him in a way that would have sent him running for the hills if he hadn't just faced down a monstrous Alpha only a precious few days ago. "If you think this is funny-"

"I'm deadly serious," Stiles says, then cocks his head at her and frowns. "What did you think was happening to you?"

"Happening to me?" Lydia asks, her hands flying to the bandaging again. Stiles' eyes follow the movement and then he's frowning harder because a few dots of blood have seeped through the bandage and... that can't be right. 

" _Is_ that a bite?" Stiles asks, because maybe this is all some huge misunderstanding and Lydia isn't actually involved at all and has something completely different going on. He's about to feel like a major idiot if that's the case.

"How did you know that?" Lydia asks. 

"Is it healed?"

"It's better than it was on Monday, if that's what you mean?" Lydia says, now looking thoroughly confused.

"I need you to tell me what happened to you. Go slow and use small words," Stiles says, pressing his thumbs into his closed eyes.

"Monday night I was out for a run and this giant _thing_ came out of an alleyway and bit me. That's not the weird part," Lydia says.

"That's _not_ the weird part?" 

"No, I went to the hospital, got it cleaned up. I had to get eight stitches but the doctor said he didn't think it would scar."

"You needed stitches?"

"Only the dissolving kind."

"Can I see?" Stiles asks, hands already reaching for Lydia's shoulder and she pulls a face and leans away.

"Why?"

"Just, it's important, alright?" Stiles says, making impatient circles with his hands. 

Lydia still looks dubious, but she also half-shrugs. "If you say so." She very gingerly peels back a piece of tape holding one side of the bandaging down and folds it back carefully, wincing as it tugs a little at the skin. Stiles stares, mouth open, at the circular bite mark still on her skin, bigger than any dog bite he's ever seen, but _still there_. 

"You're not..."

"Not what? Why does everyone want to see the bite? It's gross," Lydia says, delicately returning the bandage to rights.

"Wait, who else wanted to see it?"

"Uh, the new girl, Allison. She's sweet and has good taste in jackets but is a little morbid. Her dad took us prom dress shopping on Tuesday and he wanted to see it too. It's just a dog bite."

"Is her dad fit looking, like maybe a weekend warrior type?" Stiles asks, remembering Derek's words about the hunters entering town and a new girl at school with a father that are both overly interested in a teenage girl's dog bites can't be a coincidence. It might be a leap, but it's an intuitive one and Stiles can't ignore it.

"More like full time warrior type," Lydia confirms. "So, werewolves is what you're really going with here?"

"Look-"

"And... I just got bitten by a giant dog," Lydia says slowly.

"You're fine."

"How do you know that?"

"Because the bite still looks all... fresh," Stiles says. "It hasn't healed."

"Who says that's a rule?" Lydia asks and Stiles could hit himself, it's so logical. The problem is, he _doesn't_ know if that's what happens every time. He hasn't asked Derek about it, only gone by what happened to Lucas and Scott. For all he knows, Isaac, Erica and Boyd's bites lasted for days before they healed, or being this close to a full moon could mess everything up. For all he knows Lydia could be about to turn into a slavering monster with the full moon, uncontrolled and lethal.

"We have to go," Stiles says, scrambling to his feet and slinging his backpack on hurriedly. 

"Where?" Lydia asks, looking like she's ready to plant herself in the library chair until she gets some answers. She even grabs the bottom of the chair with her hands like she expects Stiles to try to manhandle her out of it.

"Out into the woods," Stiles says and winces because he knows exactly how creepy that sounds. "I'll explain on the way?"

"Why the rush?" Lydia asks, but the promise of information has gotten her to her feet.

"We need to get out and back before nightfall. Just trust me that it's important."

"You're asking me to take a lot on faith here," Lydia says, eyes narrowed.

"Life or death, Lydia," Stiles says, holding a hand out to her. If she refuses, if she stands her ground, he can't force her but he'll have to call Derek to come into town and leave the others alone. It's not an ideal plan to take Lydia out to them, but he has to be sure that she's not a danger to others and herself.

"Alright," she finally relents and brushes past him, ignoring his offered hand.

*

Derek is standing outside the house looking furious when Stiles slides the jeep to a stop. Lydia is sitting silently in the passenger seat, much the same way she had for the whole ride as Stiles had talked. He'd told her everything and she hadn't asked any questions, just listened with her hands folded in her lap. He has no idea whether she's just waiting for the jeep to stop to make a run for it, if she believes him or anything but he doesn't really have time to check with her as Derek reaches the jeep even before the last shudder of the engine dies away and smacks the driver's side door closed again when Stiles pushes it open.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demands, eyes darting between Stiles and Lydia.

"Is she a werewolf?" Stiles demands, leaning back so Derek gets an unobstructed view of Lydia. It's nearly six, they're only maybe half an hour away from full dark and Stiles knows he's cutting it dangerously close.

Derek blinks for a second, before his attention diverts properly to Lydia and he flares his nostrils, breathing in deep. After a pause that Stiles would swear lasted an eternity, Derek says, "No."

"Thank god," Stiles breathes out, slumping further down in his seat.

"Why do you think she was?"

Stiles gestures at her shoulder and Lydia peels aside her bandage without protest. "So that's just a dog bite?" Stiles says, feeling relief wash through him that's short-lived as Derek's eyes widen and flash blue. Lydia flinches a little and her mouth drops open.

"No... that's definitely from the Alpha," Derek says, confusion plain on his features.

"But she's okay?"

"She's not a wolf."

"That's good, right?" Lydia says, tentative. 

"I'm not sure _how_ she isn't," Derek says, still with his brow furrowed, looking like his whole world's been rocked.

"Maybe it's like, y'know, there's no such thing as one hundred percent communicability?" Stiles says. 

"You turn or you die. That's what we were taught," Derek says.

" _Die_? That's a possibility?" Stiles says on a strangled squeak. 

"Of course," Derek says, like it's common knowledge. He's still staring at the bite on Lydia's shoulder even though she's smoothed the bandage back over it.

"I've changed my mind. I don't want to know any of this. Take me home," Lydia says, shaking her head.

"Yeah, of course," Stiles agrees, reaching for the key in the ignition but he feels more than sees Derek tense beside him and then there's a dull _thwap_ noise and an _arrow_ is suddenly sticking out of Derek's shoulder. He stumbles backwards and Stiles is man enough to admit that he screams as loud as Lydia does. His first instinct is to get out of the jeep and get to Derek but Lydia catches him before he does.

"No, Stiles, go!" she says desperately, jutting her chin at the men wearing camo gear that are appearing out of the trees. They're all carrying weapons, rifles and crossbows and Stiles chews on his lip for a second, conflicted. Derek's trying to get up, but just as he makes it to his knees one of the men puts another arrow in him.

"No, stop!" Stiles cries. He jerks the jeep door open and practically falls out, tossing a, "Lydia, get out of here!" over his shoulder before he hits the ground on hands and knees. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Scott and Lucas appear on the Hale porch, both completely wolfed out and leaping for him. They land just a foot away from where Stiles is, crouched down and growling at the advancing men. 

There's a yelp from behind him and Stiles sees another man has appeared at the jeep and is tugging Lydia out. He's bleeding from a gash over his eye and Lydia has the jeep keys in her fist, individual keys poking out between her fingers and blood across her knuckles. Stiles would cheer her on if he weren't scrabbling over to Derek who's rolled awkwardly to his side, bleeding profusely and pawing at the arrows in his shoulder and through his side.

"So, it is true what they say. A dying animal does return home," a voice rings out and then there's a woman with long brown hair and carrying a sawn-off shotgun easing through the loose grouping of men at the treeline. At her appearance, Derek makes a choked off pained noise that's somehow worse than any sound he'd made when the arrows found their target.

"Look, I don't know who the hell you are-" Stiles starts to say, always vocal in fear but the woman chortles.

"Sorry, how rude of me. I'm Kate Argent. Derek, I'm disappointed you didn't tell your new little friends about me."

Derek's got a hand now fisted in Stiles' t-shirt so Stiles feels the full body shudder he gives off. He paws ineffectually at one of the arrows again, hissing when he jerks his hand away from it and the palm looks red and blistered.

"Mountain Ash shafts. Gotta love 'em. Stops you digging those out prematurely," Kate says and she sounds like she's having the time of her life. Lucas has scuttled backwards, now almost on top of Stiles but he stands slowly, features retreating back to human.

"You're about to make a huge mistake," Lucas says.

"Oh really, Deputy Stilinski?" Kate croons and Lucas startles, Kate's smile growing bigger at his obvious surprise. "Oh yes, I know exactly who you are and the thought of putting down an Officer of the Law is not enough to send me running." With that, Kate lifts her shotgun and fires. Stiles cries out in denial as Lucas crumples, chest looking absolutely _shredded_. He reaches for Lucas, unmindful that Derek still has a hold of him as Scott, the brave fool, moves sideways so now _he's_ between the gathered armed crowd and Stiles.

Stiles isn't sure when the last light of the day disappeared, but darkness seems more appropriate for what's happening now. Lydia lands roughly beside him, pushed down by the man who'd grabbed her. Stiles just hopes that Isaac, Erica and Boyd stay wherever they are, stay hidden, or have another way out of the Hale basement. That hope is short-lived though as they also appear on the Hale porch and the advancing men split their focus between the two groups.

"If you're what I think you are, you'll let Stiles and Lydia go. They're human. You can't kill humans," Scott implores, hands held out and down, faith in human decency possibly misplaced when Derek groans out, "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Sorry Derek, did you have something to share with the class?" Kate asks cheerily.

"I said, wouldn't be the first time," Derek repeats, a little stronger. He gets a hand on Stiles' shoulder to lever himself upright. He's hunched over, looking like he shouldn't be able to stand but he does it, even if he needs Stiles to lean into his leg to stop the obvious tremors. Stiles sets a hand on Lucas' chest to make sure he's still breathing, _stays_ breathing as Derek rises. "Would it, Kate?"

A few of the men at Kate's back have the good grace to look uncomfortable with this revelation, especially when she doesn't bother to deny it. "Civilian losses are to be expected and acceptable in a war, especially when they're on the wrong side."

"My six year old niece, Clarissa? That's acceptable to you?"

"Just a werewolf in waiting," Kate dismisses.

"How about my eighty-nine year old grandmother? She just a werewolf in waiting too? You think we were planning to bite her as a nintieth birthday present?"

"You can't say I cut her down in the prime of her life, can you?" Kate says and Stiles sees the moment the uncomfortable squirming from a few of her followers becomes more than that.

"What's he talking about?" one of them asks.

"Shut up, Gary," Kate spare a second to snap. "We all know the job we signed on for."

"I didn't sign up to kill no kids," another voice says behind her. "You said it was a pack out here."

"It _is_. Packs have human members. They're just as bad. Worse maybe," Kate sneers.

"I don't-"

Kate wheels around and smacks the guy about to voice another protest in the face with the butt of her shotgun. He goes down like his strings are cut and with a spray of blood. She takes a moment to eye the rest of her cohorts. "Anyone else got any _objections_?"

"I do," a man says from the opposite side of the clearing. He's dressed similarly to Kate's followers and he's also carrying a rifle, but more importantly he has a young girl at his back who Stiles recognizes from English class and his _dad_.

"I know what you're thinking," his dad says, eyes trained on the group on the other side and in particular, Kate, only sparing a fleeting glance for Stiles and Lucas. "We're outnumbered, outgunned. That might be true for the moment, but I have most of the Beacon Hills Sheriff's department on their way here so that won't hold true for long."

"Chris, what is this?" Kate asks the man standing with his dad.

"I don't know, you tell me, Kate. You tell me I wasn't about to see my little sister open fire on a bunch of _teenagers_ ," Chris says, sounding beyond furious.

"Werewolves," Kate insists. "A bunch of _werewolves_. This is what we-"

"This is _not_ what we do!" Chris roars. He seems to center himself after his outburst, breathing deeply and then more calmly says, "We have a code. Now drop your weapons."

"No," Kate hisses, then darts forward. She grabs for Stiles, probably to use as a hostage, but Derek jerks sideways and grabs her instead, lifting her off her feet and driving her backwards. They're too closely entwined for either side to have a clear shot at either one of them and that's when they hear it.

A roar.

The huge, monstrous Alpha leaps into their midst, barreling into Derek and Kate where they're locked together. They tumble down an embankment and disappear. The cronies of Kate take the opportunity for what it is and scatter while Stiles' dad runs over and skids to a halt by Stiles and Lucas and Scott rises from his crouch, blinking owlishly at the girl flanking Chris and says, "Allison?" in a tone of such disbelief and amazement that Stiles would find it hysterical any other time.

"Christ, kid," his dad says, hands drifting over Lucas' torn up torso as Erica, Boyd and Isaac also join them, forming a concerned-looking semi-circle.

"Isn't...as bad... as it looks," Lucas manages to get out on a pained croak. "I can feel it healing already."

"I've gotta say, this was _not_ one of my guesses for what was going on with the two of you."

Stiles sees Chris and Allison run past, intent on the place Kate, Derek and the alpha disappeared. He wants to follow, desperate to know if Derek's okay, but one of his dad's hands is now gripping him by the shoulder, almost painfully. "Stiles, are you... too?"

For a second, Stiles doesn't know what his dad's asking, but then he laughs, more hysterical than anything else. "No, dad. I'm just plain old human me still," he reassures.

There's the sound of weapon's fire, more roaring and then silence. Stiles cranes around, but he still can't see anything and then he's distracted by Scott shuffling into his space, patting him over and looking concerned. "I'm okay, I'm alright," he says.

"Stiles, no you're not," Scott says and his dad frowns. 

"What?"

With the adrenalin, he must not have felt it, because when Scott reaches out and presses on Stiles' hip, pain blooms fast and hard, almost taking his breath away. 

"Stiles!" Lydia yelps, hands flying to her mouth. 

Stiles looks down at himself where red is rapidly spreading across his t-shirt. "What the-?" Stiles manages to say before he's falling forward and into Scott's waiting arms, darkness dragging him under.

*

Stiles wakes to beeping and the smell of antiseptic in his nostrils. He's spent enough time in hospitals to know immediately where he is, but that doesn't do much to reassure him. With difficulty, Stiles raises his head enough to see his dad and Lucas on either side of his bed, both with feet kicked up on his mattress, both with their heads thrown back and snoring with their mouths open. They look like some strange kind of time lapse photograph of the same man and Stiles feels such love and relief wash through him that it must escape as a noise because they both jerk awake at the same time.

"Hey, kiddo, you okay?" his dad asks, immediately leaning forward and digging fingers through Stiles' hair like he used to when Stiles was younger and sick with fever.

"Think so," Stiles croaks, but when he tries to move, he finds himself pinned by wires and sheets and pain. "Maybe not?"

"You're gonna be fine," Lucas leans in to reassure him with a gentle smile. "You got shot _through_ me, though. Way to steal the limelight."

"I got shot?" Stiles says, bewildered. He remembers he was bleeding, but he didn't know why and then there was nothing. "Wait, are _you >_ okay?" Stiles asks belatedly, remembering with a start Lucas on the ground, chest an absolute mess.

"I'm fine, dumbass," Lucas says, squeezing Stiles' toes through the blanket. He looks tired but whole, wearing a scrub top and his jeans so he'd obviously not been home to change yet.

"What about-?"

"Scott's fine, Lydia and the other kids too," his dad says, but there's something in his face that tells Stiles he knows who Stiles was actually going to ask about. Lucas nudges their dad in the back with a hand and rolls his eyes.

"Derek's okay. He's been camped in the waiting room with Scott since they brought you in. It looks like the Alpha was only after Kate."

"Do we know who it was?" Stiles asks. 

"Derek's Uncle, apparently. The only survivor of the Hale fire," Lucas says.

"Woah, plot twist," Stiles says. "And Kate Argent?"

"How about you get some rest, huh? It's been a pretty long day," his dad says, hand still gentle on Stiles' head. Stiles knows that means that whatever happened was bad if his dad is avoiding the subject. There was most likely death involved and considering how spongey his head is feeling, Stiles is happy, just this once, to wait for the gory details.

"Can I see, uh, Scott?" Stiles asks, even though he desperately wants to get a look at Derek for himself. The guy had two arrows in him and Stiles can't really believe he's _fine_ without verifying for himself, but he doesn't feel like he can ask for that. 

"Sure, I'll get him," Lucas says, then, "Dad, come get coffee with me."

They leave the room and Stiles is left alone with his monitors and blankets, sitting with his hands wringing together and trying not to jostle his injured side. It's only a few minutes, but then Derek is in his doorway, looking hesitant and unsure of his welcome. 

"Oh, hey!" Stiles says, forgetting to be careful with himself and trying to sit up more. Derek crosses to him immediately when he winces and then Derek's hands land on his arm and suddenly even the edge of pain not touched by the good drugs is drifting away. Stiles watches, fascinated, as black lines curl up from his skin and across into Derek and away, his pain going with them. "Wow, what... can all werewolves do that?"

"Most, with practice," Derek says, setting Stiles' arm back on the bed gently and then stepping away. "How are you?"

"How am I? How are _you_? Last time I saw you, you were doing an impression of a pin cushion and fighting a monster," Stiles presses.

"I'm fine," Derek says, dismissive, but his face tightens up so Stiles knows that even though he might be physically okay, there's a lot more going on underneath that. He had to fight his Uncle, the one last Hale left in the world apart from him. He's probably not ready to talk about that though, but Stiles hopes, with time, he will be and Stiles is determined to be there. 

"I should... Scott wants to come in and they said only one at a time if we're not family." Derek gestures behind himself.

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says as Derek retreats all the way back to the door.

"Feel better."

"Will you come back, later I mean?" Stiles blurts, forgetting himself and craning up again. 

"Tomorrow?" Derek says.

"No, tonight. After visiting hours. I don't really want... to be alone here," Stiles says, letting himself be needy because he's hurt and tired and he nearly died. He wants... he just _wants_ and for once he's letting it show. Derek searches his face for a moment and he must find what he's looking for, because his lips curl up in a gentle smile and he nods.

"Sure."

After Scott goes and his dad and Lucas reluctantly leave, Derek, true to his word, appears out of the shadows. He pulls up one of the plastic chairs, but Stiles plucks at him and gives him big, sad eyes until Derek relents and very carefully crawls into the narrow hospital bed with him, curving himself around, mindful of bruises and wires and Stiles.

In the dark, in the quiet, between nurses visiting, he tells Stiles what happened that night in fits and starts, including filling in the blanks that Stiles didn't know about. How his Uncle, driven insane with grief and fire, had been building a pack so he could go after the Argents directly after killing Derek's sister, how Derek and Stiles had messed up his plans. How he'd been desperate and had taken the only opportunity he thought he would have at Kate. In hitching dribbles, he tells Stiles that his Uncle had managed to kill Kate in the fight and Derek had been forced to kill his Uncle in turn.

"That means you're the..." Stiles breathes out.

"Yes," Derek says and his eyes glow a dull, warm red in the dim room.

They don't kiss, not that night. They will, Stiles knows, but it's too close and they're both too hurt for it in that moment. He's glad mostly, because he doesn't want the experience to be tainted with blood. He wants it to happen on a nothing night, when their biggest concern is choosing between pizza and Chinese, maybe on Stiles' porch after the whole pack's been over for dinner and movies and Stiles has been thoroughly grossed out by Erica's flirting with his father and thoroughly noogied by Scott who's still far too amused to be stronger than Stiles now.

Derek just places a careful arm over Stiles, listens for anyone entering the room and lets Stiles sleep with his hands curled against Derek's chest.

"You are, you know," Stiles says on an exhale before exhaustion and drugs drag him all the way under.

"What?" Derek asks, sounding amused and quiet.

"My family. We're pack, right?" Stiles says and he feels Derek's arm tighten just enough that it's almost uncomfortable as he breathes _yes_ into the skin at Stiles' temple, but he doesn't care about the discomfort.

Not in the least.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi [on tumblr](http://kellifer-k.tumblr.com/).


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